It was yet another of those solitary nights
– one of the gloomier ones when I walked slow, sans purpose or thought – but it
wasn’t a quiet time. Unlike my surround that night which was still except for
the scratching sound of a stray dog far too busy rummaging through garbage to
mind me, my insides were agitated, flinching at the prospect of thoughts that
were plummeting towards me. Questions I had hurled at the universe had chosen
to boomerang back towards me, promising to put me into that seemingly endless
abyss of pointless brooding.
I decided to stab the mood in the back – to
busy myself in finding out where this thought train sprang from – and arrived
at the answer before I could arrive at the road crossing I was heading for. It
was a simple question a friend had asked earlier that day at a cinema – why are
our days, our lives so dull?
My mind went back to the movie we had been
watching – do we need edge-of-the seat stunt sequences? A terrible, dark arch
enemy with a horrifying motive who sits all day planning our end? Nail biting
twists at the possibility of anything good happening? Or a clingy love interest
who’d push me to be a better version of myself. Well, I’d be lying to myself if
I think I’d say no to a little romance, but, no, honestly, I’d love to pass on
all the drama, for peace does indeed lie in the simplicity of everyday things,
but the question remained.
I plugged my beloved earphones into my
itching ears and played my favourite background score by Hans Zimmer. It was
“Imagine the Fire” from “The Dark Knight” from Nolan's Batman trilogy. It is
said that walls at least 17 metres apart, within a closed region are required
for the human ear to discern an echo, but even through the distance between my
head and feet wasn’t even half that number, my whole body was suddenly shaking
in inspiration from the echoes that spoke volumes of the greatness of this
cowled, dark, brooding fictional character. And somehow, perhaps since the
music was being played for just me, I sort of identified with him. Suddenly,
all that mattered was that I was in action. My pace quickened. My feet, longer
craving to get to my destination, took a longer route, just so that I could uninterruptedly
continue to listen till the track ended. And then it hit me. What was lacking from
life, what filled the dullness of life was the lack of music. That’s what we
need more of. A background score. Or, like the Indian films, at least a song
now and then to distract us, to lose ourselves in.
As I took off my earphones, I started wondering
as to what role music truly played in our lives. From greeting us with
familiarity in an alien place, to forging relationships, why, to even calming
our temper when we’re waiting for an agent to pick our call, it was all music,
single handedly holding onto the ropes of our emotions. Why, even newborn
children unanimously fall asleep when they listened to a lullaby!
I had read of people’s heartbeats synchronising
with the beats of a tune while they listen to it. It all seemed very poetic,
and perhaps even had some scientific backing to it, behind all the
pseudoscience that it smelled of, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I was
looking to see the effect of a tune on a mind. I thought of how a simple tune
could take one back to their childhood, or bring back the memory of a loved
one. Of how a mere sound could invoke in one, fervent devotion to an unseen
deity. It was both strange and beautiful. How could beats from a percussion
instrument inspire one into action, and how could the melody of a flute subject
a formless soul to a soothing ache, even move someone to tears? How could some
beats push a person to stand up and dance? Or at least nod in phase with it? How
could some tunes aggravate/intensify passion? How could it light up the eyes of
lovers looking at each other? How could simple notes make one relive and forget
pain? How could the simple pursing of strings play with the very fabric of time
that wraps around all that we know – the personal time that we are all
prisoners of? All this achieved by a collection of frequencies that can be
generated by the simplest among us?
Perhaps science fuelled by mathematics wasn’t
the way here. Perhaps, like the scale of quantum and the scale of relativity,
the human emotional realm was yet another phase where the physics of common
sense – in this case, perhaps physics itself, as we’ve known it, ceased to
exist. Perhaps dry philosophy littered with pseudo-jargon terminology was
indeed the way to go. Even if it wasn’t, something told me that subjecting
surreal music, this apparent engine of life, to the mundaneness of blind math
was a blasphemous disrespect its sanctity. Perhaps leaving it unanalysed and to
treating it the way it has always been, with the occasional stare of wonder, of
awe, was a means of worshipping its grandeur.
And so I let go of the compulsive instinct
to subject this phenomenon to the microscope of cold logic, and decided to immerse
myself into the positivity it radiated. And then science swam towards me, picking
me up in all its warmth and holding me in a tight embrace. I felt the thrill that
filled me, with the Lagrangian method of swimming with a tune, and the
fulfilment I had, when, like the Eulerian approach, I lay back and let the tune
slide across my soul. I witnessed interference of waves, forming crests that
lifted my spirits and troughs that held me tight. And Doppler’s effect when listening
to “Yeh Dil Deewana” on a long drive. It was liberating beyond any words could
explain.
Perhaps we are all like Captain Von Trapp
from The Sound of Music who need to evolve from whistlers to the singers we
were born as. And perhaps we can grow with the nourishment of music. Perhaps we
needn’t find out this way. Perhaps all that was needed was to give in and let
the tune take care. What could be better?
